F98EF495_9 - YouShouldTalkTo - YouShouldTalkTo - Becky McLaughlin

[00:00:00] Becky McLaughlin: There's a couple of things that stand out for me as negative experiences with agencies. One is just not being aligned in the expectation of the work that would be produced and the hours that we paid to produce the work and the budget. 

[00:00:18] Daniel Weiner: Hello, and welcome to episode six of the You Should Talk To podcast. I am Daniel Weiner, and this podcast is still brought to you by myself. And you should talk to until we get our first sponsorship, which maybe happens today after our wonderful guest. You should talk to PR's brands and marketers for free with vetted agencies and or freelancers for pretty much any marketing or technique.

[00:01:16] Why? Because finding great agencies is a giant pain in the ass. I am joined today by the Director of Marketing at WithMe, Becky McLaughlin. No relation to Sarah McLaughlin. Becky, thank you for joining us. 

[00:01:27] Becky McLaughlin: Thanks for having me, Daniel. 

[00:01:29] Daniel Weiner: We also have Miles, the dog in the background for those who are watching the video of this.

[00:01:34] So...

[00:01:35] Becky McLaughlin: And we're back there. 

[00:01:35] Daniel Weiner: Miles is, is, is alive and appears to be sleeping through this wonderful interview so far. But Becky, tell us about WithMe. 

[00:01:43] Becky McLaughlin: Sure. 

[00:01:43] So I recently started it WithMe, Inc. about a month and a half ago, so I'm relatively new to the company. WithMe specializes in providing a technology-based amenities to apartment residents, largely in the multi-family space, where we're helping property managers of apartment buildings make the resident experience better.

[00:02:06] Becky McLaughlin: We offer a self-serve printer and a self-serve coffee, which means PrintWithMe and SipWithMe. We also have our PrintWithMe, printers in local coffee shops, maybe near you. 

[00:02:17] Daniel Weiner: That's awesome. What's the coffee situation? Like, like a cur, like a Keurig type machine or..? 

[00:02:23] Becky McLaughlin: It's, it's better than a Keurig. There's 20, 21 different flavors, specialty drinks.

[00:02:29] I've heard it's really great. We work with local distributors of coffee. I haven't had a chance to sample it yet and I'm looking forward to it. 

[00:02:38] Daniel Weiner: That's awesome. Feel, I, I love, uh, swag and getting stuff in the mail, so feel free to send me an entire coffee machine after this. You're director of marketing there and you've had a couple other stops along the way.

[00:02:48] How did you kind of get to this point at your career and get your, at least your start in marketing back in the day? 

[00:02:53] Becky McLaughlin: Yeah. You know, 

[00:02:53] I never intended to be in marketing. I think it happened accidentally. I went to Syracuse University to study journalism. I anticipated, yeah, go cute. I anticipated writing for Rolling Stone magazine one day.

[00:03:09] That's never happened. 

[00:03:11] Daniel Weiner: Okay. 

[00:03:12] Becky McLaughlin: Uh, along the way, I, I really enjoyed my public relations classes and towards the end of my college career, I decided that's what I wanted to do. I did a couple of internships in PR. My first role out of college was in a PR role. And in that role, I subbed for marketing coordinator.

[00:03:33] When she went on maternity leave, she never came back. So I just became PR and marketing coordinator and my marketing career really started there. 

[00:03:44] Daniel Weiner: Did we ever find out where she went? Did she already, is she okay? 

[00:03:47] Becky McLaughlin: I think she was stay-at-home mom for a long time. 

[00:03:49] Daniel Weiner: Okay. 

[00:03:50] Becky McLaughlin: Yeah. 

[00:03:50] Daniel Weiner: I was just making sure somebody checked on her at some point to make sure that she...

[00:03:53] Becky McLaughlin: I think she was good.

[00:03:53] I think she was good. 

[00:03:55] Daniel Weiner: That's good. 

[00:03:55] Over the course of your career, I presume you've worked with agencies, freelancers, internal resources, all that sort of stuff. My business is focused around the outsourcing portion. What's your general opinion on agencies? I find, uh, as coming from an agency background, but also in this, you know, new capacity that I, I work in, agencies get a bad rep

[00:04:14] sometimes.

[00:04:16] Becky McLaughlin: I 

[00:04:16] am a fan of agencies. I am pro agency. 

[00:04:21] Daniel Weiner: That's what we like to hear. 

[00:04:23] Becky McLaughlin: Across my career, I've worked with really lean teams. I have been the sole marketing rep in a few of those roles and then built teams from there, building teams of two or three or four individuals where the agency support really helped supplement for where the individuals on the team just wouldn't be able to scale the efforts and bringing in that expertise.

[00:04:46] So, I've relied heavily on agencies throughout my career. And my last role prior to WithMe, we had more of the agency set up internally where we didn't outsource the agencies. We had a team of 23, 24 marketing folks in-house. And so I've seen it work both ways. I think my comfort zone is actually more in lean or small teams to get

[00:05:08] some support. 

[00:05:10] Daniel Weiner: Gotcha. That's awesome. When you're, in the past, at least, now that you've got me, of course, You Should Talk To is the answer, where do you go to find agencies? Do you typically ask your colleagues, or you already have existing relationships, posting communities or LinkedIn? Where you, you're finding, you know, the agencies that you're typically working 

[00:05:26] with?

[00:05:27] Becky McLaughlin: Yeah. All of the above. Existing relationships are fantastic when you can bring them from company to company. And I've done that before. I've been working with the same graphic design consultant across four or five companies at this point. I just keep bringing him everywhere I go. And I've used PR agencies across multiple companies before, website agencies across multiple companies.

[00:05:50] I think really when you find something that works and you have that trusting good rapport, I'm not gonna try to fix something that's not broken. I'm gonna bring it with me, where maybe I don't have the existing relationship. I really look to my network to people I trust in the marketing industry.

[00:06:08] I go to various conferences that are marketing conferences, make connections there as well. And I'm always looking for just that, that agency that I'm going to be able to trust. 

[00:06:21] Daniel Weiner: Trust is the most common thing that I'm advising people to try to find. And also, the people are asking for as an agency partner that I can trust.

[00:06:29] I interviewed about a week ago Kathleen Booth. And she had like a post on LinkedIn that we talked about, that was about how community is the new Google meeting. You know, back in the day, people were typing in, you know, website agency, Atlanta, and people may still be doing that, but they're typically going to their network and they're communities and stuff and getting a shortlist prior before even going to Google and doing that.

[00:06:52] Do you have any opinions on that? Like, is it just so much more valuable? Are you trusting of people who you don't know, who are maybe in your same position at other companies? Or is it really somebody you have to know super well first to even, you know, take their suggestion? 

[00:07:06] Becky McLaughlin: Yeah. I 

[00:07:06] think that I really look to people who I know and know we have worked together.

[00:07:11] They know me, I know how their style is. I know what they're looking for, what their values are, what their expectations are in terms of quality. And I really do look to that network before I'll even consider an agency. I don't remember the last time I Googled for a local agency. It always starts with, who do you know?

[00:07:31] Daniel Weiner: Yeah. Outside of that trust factor, of course, what are you looking for from an agency partner or a vendor? You know, maybe it's a tech provider or something like that. Is there any way for an agency to stand out, in your opinion? 

[00:07:42] Becky McLaughlin: Yeah, I think going into any RFP process. I like to get really clear on what is the project at hand or what is the agency need that we have?

[00:07:55] What are the specific deliverables? And can they meet the expectations? Not just in terms of deliverables, but also timelines. I tend to work with really aggressive timelines and I want to know that the work is going to be great, high quality and on time. And then, of course, will they fit the budget and, and stay within the budget.

[00:08:16] So it's kind of the deliverables, the quality of the deliverables, are they going to be timely and will we stay in budget. And I'm really looking for agencies that shine their expertise in what I'm looking to do. So where is the technical expertise? Where are the proof points? Do you have case studies? Can you show me

[00:08:36] what you've done with a client that's similar to our company, a former project that you worked on? Can I talk to that client? Proof points are really important to me. 

[00:08:46] Daniel Weiner: Is category experience super important to you? I I'm split on the issue. My personal opinion, I care less about category experience, 'cause I think in general, you just want to find

[00:08:56] really smart people who understand you, and then you get to the, the category experience. I'm curious, is that a deal breaker for you? If, you know, you're looking for an agency and they don't have a super similar, um you know, experience or case study they can show?

[00:09:08] In 

[00:09:08] Becky McLaughlin: terms of the industry that they support?

[00:09:11] Yeah. You know, I've, I've gone both ways. I've worked in the healthcare technology space for a decade, prior to my last roles. Even the last role was in healthcare. So I did tend to hang out with the health tech, healthcare agencies, just by default. They're part of the same network as myself. I don't think that a company had to have that, that healthcare background to be able to support us.

[00:09:36] And today with what I'm doing now, it's it's, I don't know if I'm going to find an agency that specializes in multifamily, for example. So, it's really just... 

[00:09:47] Daniel Weiner: You never know that that you should talk to network is wide and vast. You never know what expertise will along cover for you. 

[00:09:53] Becky McLaughlin: Cool. 

[00:09:55] Daniel Weiner: The, uh, you actually mentioned, uh, a dirty word in, in my role, at least, at least when I'm speaking with agencies of. Do you know what I'm about to say?

[00:10:01] Becky McLaughlin: No. 

[00:10:02] What did I say? 

[00:10:03] Daniel Weiner: RFP. Very, uh, emotional word that, uh, elicits, uh, varying responses. I'm curious. And I know semantics sometimes. Are you pro like a formal RFP process for most stuff, as you're bringing in new partners, or are you anti RFP in general? 

[00:10:20] Becky McLaughlin: Uh, I 

[00:10:20] wouldn't say I'm pro or anti-quote-unquote request for proposal.

[00:10:26] I want to be very clear in what the requirements are and what the required deliverables are. So setting forth the expectations and then making sure as I'm comparing agencies that I'm going through the same list. So I'm not distracted by maybe, shiny bells and whistles that one agency is offering, but we're missing some of the key components that I'm looking for.

[00:10:49] So I do come to those conversations with a set list. And as I'm comparing agencies, I'm looking really compare apples to apples. 

[00:10:57] Daniel Weiner: Yeah, I think they're great for that. I find, at least from my experience, for competing in RFPs and also like some bigger companies typically like have to for procurement purposes, go through an RFP process.

[00:11:07] I find it makes it difficult to pull out like the personality at the beginning, at least of who you're talking to. It formalizes it too much sometimes. So it's interesting to hear, uh, some people very pro, but now I think it's, uh, whether it's an RFP or a brief, like being able to evaluate partners, apples to apples is super important.

[00:11:26] If you don't, you'll typically, from my experience, get such a huge range in budget as well and get something back for $50,000 and $500,000 and both probably sound good. But how do you evaluate that? How often are you getting hit up by vendors and agencies? Every 12 seconds, roughly? I presume on either LinkedIn or email, like most of the people that I chat with.

[00:11:47] Becky McLaughlin: Yeah. It's, I mean, it's a constant flow of communications, especially through LinkedIn and mail, and email, and it kind of becomes that background noise. If I'm being completely honest, where I'm not really paying attention to it. And I think it's more of, I begin to pay attention to it when I have a need. Otherwise, I'm not thinking about freeing agency on for specific project or for a longer partnership.

[00:12:14] So it does become a bit of background noise for me because there is a lot. 

[00:12:19] Daniel Weiner: Is there anything...? So, I mean, most people I chat would say, "no." I'm curious. Is there anything somebody in a cold email can say, truthfully in like the agency world to like, make you take a general call if the need doesn't exist or not really?

[00:12:31] I can't imagine, uh, what would be said in an email that would get me to take action if I didn't think that the need was there. What I found to be probably most effective, which has led to me working with an agency that I didn't have experience working with and wasn't necessarily a direct referral was, I did attend some sessions at a marketing conference that were held by an agency, a creative agency.

[00:12:57] Becky McLaughlin: And when the need came around for me to find a website agency partner, in my last role, I remembered their presentation and how impactful it was when I attended. And I actually ended up using them for the web project because of that experience. So that is one way that an agency was able to get in front of me and make an impact where it did result in business a couple of years along the way.

[00:13:23] Daniel Weiner: And did that 

[00:13:23] result in a positive experience too? 

[00:13:25] Becky McLaughlin: It did. It resulted in a positive experience. The website that we worked on together was a, a world-class website, in my opinion. It took maybe a little longer than I hoped for. So there were some timeline issues, but that's, gotcha, you know, it happens.

[00:13:42] Daniel Weiner: That's why we don't name agencies on this podcast, positive or negative. 'Cause stuff comes up, a lot, lot of context in between, even for negative experiences, truthfully, which, uh, will bring me into that outside of that one. Can you think of like a wildly positive agency experience you've had and what made it so positive?

[00:13:59] Becky McLaughlin: Yeah. You know, a few, a couple years ago, when I was working in the healthcare IT space, I took a pretty big risk in moving from one, um, marcom, really PR agency slash marketing agency to another. And it was moving from a larger agency to a very small agency. There was a lot of reputation attached to smaller agency, a lot of positive

[00:14:25] word-of-mouth referral, including coworkers who had previously worked with this agency at a competitor. So I took their word for it. And through a lot of conversations, we made the move to this new agency where actually the owner, the, the CEO, and president of the agency was my day-to-day contact.

[00:14:45] Becky McLaughlin: That's how small it was. And the experience was just so fantastic because I had that open communication always. I knew that I felt like one of the most important customers because the owner of the agency is my day-to-day contact. Her CMO is my marketing contact. The communication was amazing. The project management was clean and simple.

[00:15:09] It was a shared Google sheet. The status was always updated. We were always on the same page. There were no billing issues. It was not billed by our, it was billed by project. We set the projects ahead of the month. And if the work wasn't done within the time that they were able to do, they did the extra cost because they agreed to get these projects done within the time that they had allotted for it.

[00:15:34] And their connections in the industry were just so incredible that we moved from having maybe 4 byline articles a year to 60. It was something astronomical because of the connection. So I just, that probably stands out as my best agency experience. 

[00:15:51] Daniel Weiner: Yeah. Small agencies have an advantage, I think especially since COVID, 'cause I think COVID kind of, uh, spread out talent or made people realize the talent was spread out more so than before.

[00:16:02] Smaller agencies are hungrier. They're typically more nimble. Independent agencies as a whole, I would say are just gonna inherently be hungrier than holding company agencies oftentimes. It's interesting in that entire thing, you kind of alluded to it at the very end, but not entirely. I didn't hear you mention anything about the actual quality of the work.

[00:16:21] You know, you mentioned relationship, you mentioned process, project management, no billing issues, like nothing about the physical deliverables. I have, you know, my, my controversial take in this role that the work doesn't matter. And what I mean by that is, if you don't do everything that you mentioned and the relationship isn't awesome, you don't even get to do the work 'cause you're gonna get fired, or you're not even gonna get chosen.

[00:16:42] Daniel Weiner: Can you talk a little bit about that, about how you view, like, you know, depending on the service, creative's a little different, but like the actual quality of work? Are you looking for best in class in terms of deliverables, or is the other stuff the more important piece in your mind? 

[00:16:57] Becky McLaughlin: That's a great question. Ultimately the quality of the work is going to be important.

[00:17:02] That's why we're bringing in an agency to do the work that my direct team couldn't do on our own or I couldn't do on our own. And I had mentioned my Syracuse University, journalism, yep, education. So I have very high expectations when it comes to content and the written word and the quality of writing.

[00:17:23] With that specific agency, one of our main writers on our account was also that owner of the agency, and I felt it. I felt her decades of experience in the work. There wasn't a lot of back and forth. I knew that a super junior rep or intern wasn't writing our, our byline pieces and press releases.

[00:17:43] Becky McLaughlin: And there's a time and place for that. It wasn't, like, me in that role. 

[00:17:48] Sure. So the quality is really important. And I've actually come into, um, real headaches when the quality just wasn't there. And I have to rework things all together, or I'm trying so hard to rework what was presented. That it's easier just to say, "You know what? We're completely scrapping this project, and I'm gonna do it on my own."

[00:18:07] And that's probably the worst thing that can happen. In my opinion and an agency experience where we say, "Forget it. We're just need it or you're gone."

[00:18:17] Daniel Weiner: Yeah. That never ends positively for the agency in that scenario, I would imagine. On that flip side, we'll get super negative for a moment. Can you think of the opposite of that experience?

[00:18:25] You know, a negative agency experience and what was the, what started it down that path of being a non-positive experience? 

[00:18:33] Becky McLaughlin: Yeah. So, I mean, there's a couple of things that stand out for me as negative experiences with agencies. One is just not being aligned in the expectation of the work that would be produced and the hours that we paid to produce the work and the budget. Early on in working with one of my first agencies,

[00:18:57] I came in and I was evaluating the invoices that we were getting every month. And I was brand new to the company and we were getting billed for 65, 70, 80 hours a month. And the retainer was for 40. It was just because there, there were no parameters around what was being done. Then the president of the company just said, "Keep doing what you're doing."

[00:19:20] Becky McLaughlin: We'll just keep paying the overages. And getting to the point where we were staying within the 40 hours was quite painful. And, you know, I expressed multiple times we have to get into the 40 hours and bills kept coming in, you know, with the surprise overages. But that's something that can be worked out with open, honest communication. 

[00:19:41] Daniel Weiner: A phone call? 

[00:19:42] Becky McLaughlin: Directions.

[00:19:43] Right, right. So that actually, that did work out. I did have an agency experience where things didn't work out. Unhelpful companies go, I'd come in new to the company. And there was an agency that had been hired maybe six months prior to help with some brand messaging. And after moving past the brand pyramid, brand messaging exercise, I came in and as the CEO and I were getting client who realized,

[00:20:11] "We need to go back and make some updates to what this agency had done." And there was some friction there, and saying, "Well, I thought you were going with this." Well, we're changing our mind now. And that impacted some of the, the longer form content that they started to create for us, like, like blog, posts and articles.

[00:20:30] Daniel Weiner: Sure. 

[00:20:30] Becky McLaughlin: And we kept going back to the new messaging that we had agreed on. And they were stuck in old messaging and the quality of the work just wasn't there. It did feel like a super junior person was doing the writing where we needed someone a bit more elevated. And ultimately, we severed the relationship due to just that friction and not getting the work that we were looking for.

[00:20:57] And they weren't very happy about it. We uncovered a blog post that this agency wrote, uh, several months after we severed the relationship and the blog post was about their experience with us as a customer and their, their bad experience with us. And they kind of blamed their, the severing of our relationship on this new VP of marketing who came in.

[00:21:22] Daniel Weiner: I mean, they didn't tell, 

[00:21:23] they didn't name any of you? 

[00:21:24] Becky McLaughlin: They, they, no names. I'm very happy that my name does not come up in research as attach to 

[00:21:30] that article. But to say...

[00:21:32] Daniel Weiner: I was gonna say, I need to google my guests before, uh, before having them on, see how much controversy is around. That's wild. Did it end that poorly, like, or was it more just like a, you know, a gentle goodbye?

[00:21:45] It was 

[00:21:45] Becky McLaughlin: a little, it was a little like the friction was still there. I had to deliver the interviews, so I probably just seemed like the bad guy in the situation, but we moved on and I actually brought over that other agency that I just raved about, uh, to support us in our PR efforts. And that was only at that company for a short time.

[00:22:02] But, it was a different experience when I brought in the trusted agency that spoke the same language as me.

[00:22:08] Daniel Weiner: Well, you're 

[00:22:09] not, 

[00:22:09] if, uh, if somebody's not talking a little bit of shit about you, you're not doing everything right. So, it's, uh, in that first scenario, you mentioned that it was salvaged, after like you had a conversation, it went back. But, you know, I typically ask, do you think a negative agency situation can be salvaged?

[00:22:24] And the resounding answer is, you kind of get like, half a chance to like, get it back on solid ground. Do you think there's like a point of no return in some capacity or like in general, if you can get back on the rails?

[00:22:39] Becky McLaughlin: I think 

[00:22:39] it depends on what this scenario is. So, for example, with the agency where we are just having misalignment with the number of hours that it would take to get the work done, it did take a lot of back and forth, and they had to revamp their entire process of

[00:22:54] how they were used to working with clients because I guess I had higher expectations on, uh, you know, the project management really is what it came down to, it's how are we managing these projects. And we came up with a system that worked. We just, we planned for the month ahead. And we figured out how many hours we're going to be assigned there,

[00:23:14] bimonthly check-in, say, "Are we on track, are we off-track? Do we want to go over? Or are we taking out the project so we can stay within that 40-hour retainer?" And it worked out, and I worked with them for probably five or six years before moving to another agency that, that's smaller petite one. Now when I did move agencies, one of those things that was lingering in my mind was, well, that trouble that we had in the past or about the account management and managing our hours.

[00:23:45] And that was something that was really important for me to have when bringing on the new agencies, how are we gonna manage that the time and the budget? And that worked out really well. Now with the agency where there was just that friction, I think that is what is hard to come back from is when the relationship is really soured.

[00:24:05] And, and that's how that felt. It felt like they didn't wanna work with us. And if we feel like you don't wanna work with us, we don't wanna keep you. 

[00:24:14] Daniel Weiner: Yeah. 

[00:24:15] That kind of falls, that kind of fall. Yeah. It's, uh, I wouldn't say easy, but you can correct work, or you can make work better, or you can get more aligned, but once the relationship piece is soured and you don't even like speaking to each other, I find it's, uh, pretty difficult to get to solid ground after that.

[00:24:32] With everything going on in the marketing space right now, you know, all sorts of new stuff, we've got metaverse, NFTs, all sorts of stuff. What are you most bullish on? You know, we've got events coming back, as well post-COVID. Like, what are you most excited about or into currently? 

[00:24:45] Becky McLaughlin: Well, what I'm 

[00:24:45] into currently is just building a marketing engine from the ground up.

[00:24:50] So I'm in the basics right now. Like I'm completely back to the basics with getting our website in a good faith, having a simple-to-use CMS. Right now, our website's on a few disparate platforms, marketing automation... Again, it's kind of the basics. Marketing automation in 2014 was new and exciting, and now it's standard, but we don't have it at my company.

[00:25:14] So I'm looking at, you know, some of these real basics, getting the website into the place, getting marketing automation layered on. I am excited about conferences being back in person. We have a pretty heavy conference rotation where we go to about 30 a year. We have an event's coordinator dedicated to that. And there's just so much that you can do around conferences with pre-show marketing, during event marketing, special promos, or leave follow-up after the marketing.

[00:25:43] And I've been focused on bringing that into this new company as well. It's a lot of fun building the engine, getting systems in place and bringing people in as well. So I'm hiring a full team right now. So it's exciting. Very much in the basics, not too much in like the innovation space right now and new things.

[00:26:04] It's just getting it built. 

[00:26:06] Daniel Weiner: You guys aren't launching a, uh, a cryptocurrency here, uh, in the next few weeks or anything like that? 

[00:26:12] Becky McLaughlin: No. 

[00:26:13] Daniel Weiner: All right. That's fair. What keeps you up at night as a marketing leader? 

[00:26:18] Becky McLaughlin: Probably marketing performance, hitting the goals. That seems to always be what has very literally woken me up in the middle of the night is we have these hefty goals of how many leads we're going to bring in, the volume of interest and how we're going to get there.

[00:26:38] The delta between the actuals and the goals, uh, is something that keeps me up at night. And making sure that, you know, my team is doing well as well because my team is one of the most important things. The managing my team, leading my team, making sure that I am a good, effective leader and not letting any of the stresses around performance trickling to their world as is unnecessary.

[00:27:08] Daniel Weiner: Sure. Well, 

[00:27:08] your secretary is asleep behind you at the moment. I don't know if you noticed that, that it woke up for a moment to say "hello" and then went back to sleep. So asleep on the job. That's the, uh, the last marketing focus question I had for you a couple more that I typically ask everybody just to see if, uh, I think it's interesting to see everybody's background.

[00:27:25] Uh, what was your very first job growing up? 

[00:27:28] Becky McLaughlin: Very first job? Not marketing, just ever? 

[00:27:31] Daniel Weiner: Ever.

[00:27:32] Becky McLaughlin: I wasn't allowed to work. It was a rule that my parents had set, maybe some privilege there, I don't know. They wanted me to focus on school. And the day I turned 18 years old, I marched the mall and I applied for, for my first job at Abercrombie & Fitch.

[00:27:48] Daniel Weiner: Astounded.

[00:27:49] Becky McLaughlin: Yep. I worked there for several years throughout the end of high school and in college and both the Philadelphia area and the Syracuse area. 

[00:27:58] Daniel Weiner: That's amazing. I have just such memories of high school, when Abercrombie, you just had to wear Abercrombie, or you were cool. And desperately trying to fit in.

[00:28:06] And my parents taken me to the mall and my dad just had to dance to the music to like mess with me 'cause he knew how much it mortified me. So I vivid memories of that in American Eagle and them being like, "Why are we buying you this stuff?" I'm like, "I don't know. Everybody's wearing it. We have to get it

[00:28:20] or I'm not gonna fit in in high school and middle school." 

[00:28:23] Becky McLaughlin: Yeah. 

[00:28:24] Daniel Weiner: But positive Abercrombie experience? 

[00:28:27] Becky McLaughlin: There were, there were ups and downs. The music was great. 

[00:28:31] Daniel Weiner: That's good. That's good. We'll, we'll move on from, uh, the Abercrombies. So, what's your death row meals? 

[00:28:37] Becky McLaughlin: It's, the 

[00:28:38] answer's always pizza. It's so, I could have said some fancy seafood dish, but the answer is always pizza.

[00:28:45] It's my... 

[00:28:45] Daniel Weiner: What kind of, what kind, what kind of pizza?

[00:28:48] Becky McLaughlin: You know, I just do regular plain cheese pizza. 

[00:28:51] Daniel Weiner: Plain cheese 

[00:28:52] pizza? 

[00:28:52] Becky McLaughlin: In this area, there's, there's like a Jersey Shore Pizza where the sauce is a little sweet and that would have to be my, my favorite. 

[00:29:02] Daniel Weiner: Okay. Hopefully, you don't end up on a ban then.

[00:29:04] I feel like if you're on death row, you may come up with a better meal than just plain cheese pizza if that's your, that's your last 

[00:29:08] meal.

[00:29:08] Becky McLaughlin: The whole pizza, though. The whole pizza. 

[00:29:10] Daniel Weiner: That that's fair. Uh, could you eat the whole pizza?

[00:29:13] Becky McLaughlin: Yes. 

[00:29:15] Daniel Weiner: Okay. Well, that would be the, that would be the fo oh, Miles is coming over to say,

[00:29:18] "Hello." The final question, who is somebody who inspires you personally, professionally? Any of it? 

[00:29:23] I think that the very first person that comes to mind is probably an answer that a lot of guests say, my mother. She has said...

[00:29:33] Daniel Weiner: No one has said your, 

[00:29:34] no one has said your mother yet. 

[00:29:35] Becky McLaughlin: Real, 

[00:29:37] really? 

[00:29:37] Daniel Weiner: Not, not, not your, but not your mother.

[00:29:39] No. 

[00:29:40] Um, so, my mother, um, an amazing inspiration. She has so many health issues, from rheumatoid arthritis to being legally blind. And every single time I talk to her, despite how she's feeling, she's always focused on how she's doing, and it's always a positive mindset. She never complains. And I aspire to never complain.

[00:30:06] Daniel Weiner: I aspire to do that as well. And it's a, a work in progress, but no, that's wonderful. My parents are disgustingly, uh, supportive as well. Uh, it's good to hear you have that from your mother as well. But no, this was wonderful. I really appreciate you joining us. Where is the best spot if somebody wanted to send you? You don't have to give your email. But I presume LinkedIn, even though it may not get read, you're probably not gonna stand out, but is LinkedIn the best place for people to find you?

[00:30:29] Becky McLaughlin: Yeah, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. I think I'm on there a few times a day. I think that my URL there is beckymclaughlin25 and of course, working at WithMe, Inc. 

[00:30:40] Daniel Weiner: Awesome. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. And I appreciate Miles as well, who's moved to the, uh, the chair in the background, now relocated, but, uh, thank you.

[00:30:49] And I will talk to you soon. 

[00:30:50] Becky McLaughlin: All right. Thanks so much.